WE ANCHOR OFF THE ISLAND.
The word fetched me out of my bunk like a shot from a gun. I ran
past him, scrambled up the fo'c's'le ladder, and gained the deck in
time to see Miss Belcher emerge from the after-companion upon the
dawn, her hair in a "bun," her bare feet thrust into loose felt
slippers, her form wrapped in a Newmarket overcoat closely buttoned
over her _robe de nuit_.
"The Island, ma'am!" announced Captain Branscome from the helm; and,
turning there by the fo'c's'le hatch and following the gesture of his
hand, I descried a purplish smear on the southern horizon. To me it
looked but a low-lying cloud or a fogbank.
"I'll take your word for it," answered Miss Belcher, calmly.
"You have timed it well, Captain Branscome."
"Under Providence, ma'am," the Captain corrected her, and called to
me to take the wheel while he fetched out his chart and unrolled it
for her inspection. "We are running straight down upon the northern
end of it, and our best anchorage (if I may suggest) lies to the
south'ard--in Gow's Creek, as they call it."
He laid a finger on the chart.
"We rely upon you, sir, to choose."
"I thank you, ma'am. If (as I doubt not) we find plenty of water
there, it will be the best anchorage in this breeze; not to mention
that this Gow's Creek runs up, as we are directed, to within a mile
and a half of the No. 3 _cache_. If you agree, ma'am, I have only to
ask your instructions whether to coast down the east or the west side
of the Island. The wind, you perceive, serves equally well for
both."
Miss Belcher considered for a moment.
"The Keys lie to the west of Gable Point, here. By taking that side
we can have a look at them on our way."
"Right, ma'am. Harry!"--he turned to me--"bring her nose round to
sou'-west and by south, and stand by for the gybe." He hauled in the
main-sheet and eased it over. "Now, see here, lad," he called to me
sharply as the little vessel yawed: "where were your eyes just then?"
"I was taking a look at the land-fall, sir," I answered truthfully.
"Then I'll trouble you to fix your mind on the lubber's-mark and hold
her straight. That's discipline, my boy, and in this business you
may want all you can learn of it."
It was not Captain Branscome's habit to speak sharply. I turned my
attention to the card, conscious of a pair of red ears.
The sky brightened, and within an hour, as we ran down upon it at
something like eight knots, the Island began to take shape.
A wisp of morning fog floated horizontally across it, dividing its
shore-line from the hills in the interior, which, looming above this
cloudy base, appeared considerably higher than, in fact, they were.
The shore itself along the eastern side showed almost uniformly
steep--a line of reddish rock broken with patches of green, which we
mistook for meadows (but they turned out to be nothing more or less
than sheets of green creepers matted together and overhanging the
cliffs). At its northern extremity, upon which we were closing down
at an acute angle, the land dropped to a low-lying, sandy peninsula
with a backbone of rock almost bare of vegetation, and beyond this we
saw the white surf glittering around the Keys.
Our course gave them a fairly wide berth; and at first I took them
for a continuous line of sandbanks running in a rough semicircle
around the low spit which the chart called Gable Point; but as we
drew level they broke up into islets, with blue channels between, and
at sight of us thousands of sea-birds rose in cloud upon cloud, with
a clamour that might have been heard for miles. One of these banks--
the northernmost--showed traces of herbage, grey in colour and dull
by contrast with the verdure of the Island. The rest were but barren
sand.
We rounded them at about three cables' length and stood due south,
giving sheet again. Southward from the neck of the peninsula this
western side of the Island differed surprisingly from the other.
Here were no cliffs, but a flat shore and long stretches of beach,
gradually shelving up to green bush, with here a palmetto grove and
there a lagoon of still water within the outer barrier of sand.
Mr. Jack Rogers had relieved me at the helm, and with the Captain's
permission I had stepped below to the saloon, where Plinny was
waiting to give me breakfast, and persuaded the good soul not only to
let me carry it on deck and eat it there, but to postpone washing-up
for a while and accompany me. To this she would by no means consent
until I had brought her the Captain's leave.
"You may take her my leave," said he, with a sudden flush on his face,
"and my apologies for having neglected to request the honour of her
company. The fact is," he added, with a hard glance at me, "Miss
Plinlimmon's sense of discipline is so rare a thing that I am always
forgetting to do justice to it. Were it possible to find a whole
crew so conscientious I would undertake to sail to the North Pole."
I conveyed this answer to Plinny, and it visibly gratified her.
She retired at once to the ladies' cabin to indue her poke-bonnet
with coquelicot trimmings. Her apron she retained, observing that on
an expedition of this sort one should never be taken at unawares, and
that when at Rome you should do as the Romans did. "By which, my
dear Harry," she explained, "you are not to understand me to refer to
their Papist observances, such as kissing a man's toe. Were such a
request proffered to me even at the cannon's mouth, I trust my
courage would find an answer. 'No, no,' I would say,
"'I will not bow within the House of Rimmon:
Yours faithfully, Amelia Plinlimmon.'"
As we reached the head of the companion-ladder Captain Branscome, who
was standing just aft of the wheel, behind Mr. Rogers's shoulder, and
scanning the shore through his glass, made a motion to step forward
and hand her on deck. This was ever his courteous way, and I turned
a moment later in some surprise, to find that, instead of closing the
glass, he had lifted it, and was holding it again to his eye, at the
same time keeping his right shoulder turned to us.
While we looked, he lowered it and made his bow, yet with something
of a preoccupied air.
"Good morning, ma'am. You are very welcome on deck, and I trust that
Harry conveyed the apology I sent by him."
"I beg you will not mention it, sir. It is true that I suffered from
the curiosity which outspoken critics have called the bane of my sex;
yet, believe me, I was far from accusing you, knowing how many
responsibilities must weigh on the captain of an expedition, even
though it fare as prosperously as ours."
"True, ma'am," Captain Branscome tapped his spyglass absent-mindedly,
and seemed on the point of lifting it again. "Though, with your
permission, I will add 'D.V.'"
"Yes--yes"--Plinny smiled a cheerful approval--"we are ever in the
Divine Hand; not more really, perhaps, in the tropics than in those
more temperate latitudes when, though the wolf and lion do not howl
for prey, an incautious step upon a piece of orange-peel has before
now proved equally fatal."
Captain Branscome bowed again.
"You call me the leader of this expedition, Miss Plinlimmon; and so I
am, until we drop anchor. With that, in two or three hours at
farthest, my chief responsibility ends, and I think it time"--he
turned to Mr. Rogers--"that we made ready to appoint my successor.
I shall have a word to say to him."
"Nonsense, man!" answered Mr. Rogers, looking up from the wheel.
"If you mean me, I decline to act except as your lieutenant.
You have captained us admirably; and if I decline the honour, you
will hardly suggest promoting Harry, here, or Goodfellow!"
"I was thinking that Miss Belcher, perhaps--"
"Hallo!" said Miss Belcher, turning at the sound of her name, and
coming aft from the bows, whence she had been studying the coastline.
"What's the matter with _me?_"
"The Captain," exclaimed Mr. Rogers, "has been tendering us his
resignation."
"Why?"
"Mr. Rogers misunderstands me, ma'am," said Captain Branscome.
"I merely said that, so far as we have agreed as yet, My authority
ceases an soon as we cast anchor. If you choose to re elect me, I
shall not say 'No'--though not coveting the honour; but I can only
say 'Yes' upon a condition."
"Name it, please."
"That I have every one's implicit obedience. I may--nay, I shall--
give orders that will be irksome and at the same time hard to
understand. I may be unable to give you my reasons for them; or able
to give you none beyond the general warning that we are after
treasure, and I never yet heard of a treasure-hunt that was
child's-play."
He spoke quietly, but with an impressiveness not to be mistaken,
though we knew no cause for it. Miss Belcher, at any rate, did not
miss it. She shot him a keen glance, turned for a moment, and seemed
to study the shore, then faced about again, and said she--
"I am not used to be commanded. But I can command myself, and am not
altogether a fool."
The Captain bowed. "I was thinking, ma'am, that might be our
difficulty. But if I have your word to try--"
"You have."
"I thank you, ma'am, and will own that my mind is relieved. It may
even be that, from time to time, I may do myself the honour of
consulting you. Nevertheless--"
"I mustn't count on it, eh? Well, as you please; only I warn you
that, while in any case I am going to be as good as my word, if you
treat me like a sensible person I shall probably be a trifle better."
For ten seconds, maybe, the pair looked one another in the eyes; then
the Captain bowed once more, and apparently this invited her to step
forward with him to the bows, where they halted and stood conning the
coast, the Captain through his spyglass.
As they left us, Plinny and I moved to the waist of the ship, where
we paused by consent, and I resumed my breakfast, munching it as I
leaned against the port bulwarks. We were now rapidly opening Long
Bay (as the chart called it), a deep recess running out squarely at
either extremity, the bight of it crossed by a beach, and a line of
tumbling breakers, that extended for close upon three miles.
Above the beach a forest of tall trees, in height and colour at once
distinguishable from the thick bush we had hitherto been passing,
screened the bases of a range of hills which obviously formed the
backbone of the island; and as the whole bay crept into view we
discerned in the north (or, to be accurate, N.N.E.) corner of this
long recess a marshy valley dividing the scrub from the forest.
The mouth of this valley, where it widened out upon the beach,
measured at least half a mile across. The chart marked it as Misery
Swamp, and indicated a river there. We could detect none, or, at any
rate, no river entrance. If river there were, doubtless it emptied
its waters through the fringe of grey-green weeds, and dispersed over
the flat-looking foreshore; but even at two miles' distance it looked
to be a dismal, fever-haunted spot.
By contrast, the noble range of woodland to southward of it and the
rocky peaks that rose in delicate shadow above the tree-tops were
beautiful as a dream, even to eyes fresh from the forest scenery of
Jamaica; and while Plinny leant with me against the bulwarks, I felt
that in the silence immortal verse was shaping itself, which it did
after a while to this effect--
"Arrived o'er the limitless ocean
In 16 degrees of N. latitude,
Our lips were attuned to devotion,
Our spirits uplifted in gratitude.
"Our hearts with poetic afflatus
Took wing and impulsively soared
As the lead-line (a quaint apparatus)
Reported the depth overboard.
"Oh, oft had I dream'd of the tropics--
But never to see them in person--
So full of remarkable topics
To speculate, sing, and converse on."
It was Mr. Goodfellow who worked the hand-lead, under Captain
Branscome's orders, from a perch just forward of the main rigging;
but at a mile's distance we carried deep water with us past Crabtree
Point, and around the unnamed small cape which formed the
south-western extremity of the island. We rounded this, and,
hauling up to the wind, found (as the reader may discover for himself
by a glance at the chart) that the shore made almost directly E. by
N., with scarcely an indentation, for Gow's Gulf.
Here the water shoaled, though for the first mile almost
imperceptibly. The inlet itself resembled the estuary of a mighty
river, its both sides well wooded, though very different in
configuration, the northern rising quietly from shelving beaches of
coral-white sand to some of the most respectable hills in the island,
while that on our starboard hand presented a succession of cliff and
chasm, the cliffs varying, as we judged, from two hundred to two
hundred and fifty feet sheer.
In three and a half fathoms (reported by Mr. Goodfellow) the water,
which was exquisitely clear, showed good white sand under us.
Ahead of us the creek narrowed, promising an anchorage almost
completely landlocked and as peaceful as the soul of man could
desire. We drew a short eight feet of water, and with such soundings
(for the tide had not been making above an hour) I expected the old
man to hold on for at least another mile, when, to my surprise, he
took the helm from Mr. Rogers and, sending him forward, shook the
_Espriella_ up in the wind, at the same time calling to Goodfellow
and me to lower the main throat-halliards.
"Leave go anchor!"
With a splash her anchor plunged over, took the ground, and in
another twenty yards brought us up standing.
"Hallo!" Miss Belcher scanned the shore. "You're giving the boats a
long trip, Captain."
"I take my precautions, ma'am," answered Captain Branscome, almost
curtly.